Gender Inequality in the Faculty of the Italian Higher Education and the Failure of Meritocratic Policies
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- Davide Borrelli (IT) Università Suor Orsola Benincasa di Napoli
- Marialuisa Stazio (IT) Universidad Federico II de Nápoles https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8922-004X
Abstract
The article shows the gender inequality of the Italian university teaching staff and the failure of policies that rely on neoliberal beliefs and values of academic competition, of the supposedly objective evaluation of the quality of scientific research and, generally, of the merit culture. First, we document the persistence of female disadvantage at the university by analyzing time series on Italian university researchers. Then we compare the data of Italian faculty with that of the European Union as a whole. Finally, we present the conclusions of a qualitative research based on in-depth interviews with some professors and researchers who work at the Italian university, and we highlight the limits and perverse effects of the meritocratic method and neoliberal feminism in the resolution of inequality. This type of feminism is not concerned with the elimination of real inequalities in the system, but with the promotion of women to the top of Higher Education institutions and, in general, in society. In other words, it is not really interested in transforming the world by eliminating the structural conditions that produce inequality, but only tries to enhance in each woman –according to neoliberal ethics– the competitiveness of her own human capital.
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